The Legend of Gallifrey Part Three: Angel of War
by TheUSADoctor
Summary: An experimental dematerialization circuit brings the third Doctor right into the middle of the Sontaran-Rutan War, where entire units have been mysteriously disappearing
The Legend of Gallifrey Part 3: Angels of War

The TARDIS rocked back and forth under the weight of time itself.

The Doctor had been afraid of this. Without a proper dematerialization circuit, it could very well implode under the pressure of being in the vortex. The Doctor had to set it down somewhere and quick, but with the way it was rocking he was having trouble hitting the right levers and buttons.

He grasped the edge of the console and secured his position by firmly grabbing the edge of the monitor, then he gripped the wibbly lever and gave it a good yank. The TARDIS spun upside-down, knocking the Doctor to the floor, then it shuddered and stopped. Wherever the Doctor was now, he was stranded, so he opened the door, and stepped out into a war.

Laser blasts flew everywhere, and explosions rocked the entire gigantic field of blue grass, stained red from blood. On one end of the field, the Doctor could make out a battalion of the short, potato-like Sontarans as they charged towards him. On the other end of the field, he could make out a hoard of Rutans, with their blobby green shapes and thin tentacles that could somehow still hold laser rifles.

The Doctor had heard of the Sontarans before, but he hadn't actually met one since that field trip in the Academy back in his 12th year. He had met the Rutans before on several occasions, the latest of which had been with Jamie McCrimmon back in his previous form. He knew overall that although both races were war-crazed, the Rutans were an overall better choice, so he ran towards them.

The Sontarans were only maybe ten yards behind him when he reached the Rutans. They were confused as to who he was, but they got distracted by the oncoming enemy and decided to bring him back to base to decide what to do with him, so as the army fought the Sontarans, two of them took the Doctor away towards a large silvery complex off in the distance. They introduced themselves as Raktar and Jul-Zun.

"You say you landed here on accident, Doctor?" asked Jul-Zun. "If your craft is on the battlefield, I'm afraid it is likely long gone."

"It's deceptively resilient," said the Doctor. Nevertheless, he was worried. Although he had met a Sontaran before, he had yet to encounter their weaponry. He did know that the TARDIS had a strong force field, but the Sontarans had, by the point the Doctor had arrived, been at constant war for almost a century, and war does strange things to a species and a man.

The two Rutans brought the Doctor to a vehicle that was similar to car, but circular and without a roof. The Doctor was chauffeured into the back, and Raktar got into the driver's seat, then the vehicle spun off towards the Rutan base in the distance.

Less than three minutes of driving and talking, the vehicle came across a hoard of other vehicles, all parked but still running.

Jul-Zun swore in Rutan. "Not again!" he said.

"What happened?" the Doctor asked. "Has this happened before?"

"Every fourth day at 12 rells in, a group of good warriors has gone missing. It's been going on for almost 100 days now," said Raktar.

The Doctor got out of the car, curious as to what this phenomenon was. He pulled a device out of his pocket and used it to scan the entire group of cars.

"I'm picking up a cluster of chronon particles," he told Raktar and Jul-Zun. "From the setup, it looks like something appeared from the Vortex, sent each soldier back in time, then disappeared back into the Vortex. How is this possible?"

"We've concluded the same thing of every investigation we've done, Doctor," said Raktar. "If you wish to 'crack this case' as they say, you will have to do better than that."

The three of them got back into the vehicle and drove to to Rutan base, where the staff immediately swarmed him. After a quick dose of truth serum and a questioning, they concluded that (gasp) he was not a Sontaran, nor a Sontaran construct, designed to infiltrate their base. Pending further investigation, the Doctor was put in the library with the door locked and a plate of Rutan war rations, which all tasted like tree bark. Since he was in a library, the Doctor decided to do a little reading. He found something that he immediately brought to a guard's attention. Jul-Zun and Raktar, as well as the base commander, were all summoned.

"Look at this," the Doctor said. He showed them a book of fallen war heroes, specifically the page of Rutans who had disappeared mysteriously under undetermined circumstances. He directed their attention to a specific soldier by the name of Tular.

"Note the facial structure," he told the Rutans. Then he pulled out a history book and turned to a page with various family portraits, and pointed to a specific Rutan standing all on his own, with a laser rifle aimed up into the sky, and a grin on his face, the exact same face as the one on Tular, with zero room for error, given the resolution of the pictures.

They seemed skeptical, but after the Doctor showed them four more examples, they were convinced.

"Something sent them back through time. Based on the amount of chronon energy present at the site me, Raktar, and Jul-Zun encountered on the way, something that's time travelling itself. The pattern of the time travelling is too consistent to be on purpose, unless whatever this is is some sort of psychopath," the Doctor said. "It's also definitely a creature, based on the signature I picked up. Some sort of creature that has the ability to sent other creatures back in time. If this isn't cleared up quickly, this planet's timeline could end up being very messed up."

The Rutans were a race known for being able to see multiple angles of a conversation, so it didn't take much talking to explain it all to them. They quickly devised a plan to identify and capture the creature.

At 5 rells the next day, a hoard of Rutans were assembled outside by the Doctor's orders, and they had all been surrounded by various pieces of machinery and walls, and above them hung a small silver ball, a teleporter, primed and ready for whatever was to happen.

The Doctor, Raktar, and Jul-Zun stood on a hovering observation platform, overseeing it all. Raktar was watching the hoard almost creepily, while Jul-Zun muttered to himself and the Doctor paced nervously.

9 rells… 10 rells…

An alarm sounded, and a cry of "SONTAR-HA!" was heard on the other side of the base.

11 rells…

The Doctor looked over, suddenly worried. The Sontarans were here to mess up his plan.

Another alarm sounded, and the clock changed to 12 rells.

In the middle of the walled enclosure, time split apart, and something gray appeared, something the Doctor had read stories about as a little 20-year-old boy, something he was deathly afraid of.

A Weeping Angel stood, frozen, in the middle of the group of Rutans.

An wall of fire erupted on the other side of the base, and Rutan guards were hurled, screaming, to their deaths by the force of the explosion. There had to be a way to send the Angel away and stop the Sontarans without messing up the timelines.

The Doctor ran to a console that was connected to a gadget on the inside of the enclosure, and began to type furiously, stabilizing the Angel's timestream so it wouldn't disappear again while at the same time confirming a suspicion of his. Behind him, Jul-Zun and Raktar grabbed rifles and began to head off to join their warring comrades, but the Doctor blocked their way.

"I have a plan, but I need your help for it," he told them.

He explained his plan, which he had realized would work after his suspicion had been confirmed. Jul-Zun and Raktar agreed, especially after the Doctor told them of his findings. They then dropped their weapons and ran to the battle.

The group of Rutans, insured by the teleporter, were all staring incessantly at the Weeping Angel. With the sheer amount of eyes aimed at it, it hadn't moved.

The Doctor turned to watch the battle and see the progress of Jul-Zun and Raktar. They had gathered a bunch of the guards and were all running towards the enclosure, with the Sontarans close on their heels, just as planned. The Rutans inside the walled area were beginning to vacate the area, still making sure that the Angel was observed at all times. They all knew what a Weeping Angel could do to them if they blinked.

There were only a handful of Rutans left in the enclosure by the time Jul-Zun, Raktar, and the guards entered, followed by the Sontarans. The Rutans surrounded the Angel, watching it but still making it unobservable to the Sontarans. Then the Doctor activated the teleporter and the door, and the Sontarans were left in the enclosure with the Angel.

They were obviously aware of what it was, since they all backed up against the wall and stared with fear in their eyes. The Doctor flipped a switch, and the machines placed all around the inside of the enclosure lit up. The Sontarans and the Angel blurred, then the Vortex sucked them all up and replaced them with a big, green, tentacled blob. The Rutan queen.

The Doctor had noticed earlier that the Angel and the queen's timelines had somehow gotten intertwined, causing the Angel to appear wherever a large group of Rutans was at 12 rells each day. The Doctor had ejected the Sontarans and the Angel into a secured section of the Vortex, then used the residual temporal energy to pull the queen out of the temporal limbo she'd been placed in.

The Rutans that had been inside the enclosure reappeared a few hundred yards away. The door to the enclosure opened, and the queen came out. They all cheered.

A few hours later, Jul-Zun and Raktar had driven the Doctor up to his TARDIS, now standing in the middle of an empty field. They stopped at the door, and the two Rutans marvelled at its continued existence.

"This craft of yours is truly remarkable, Doctor. Anything that can stand up to Sontaran lasers must be very advanced, indeed," said Raktar.

"It's my ship, Raktar. The temporary dematerialization circuit I installed only has maybe one trip left before the TARDIS explodes," the Doctor said. All three of them laughed.

"We thank you, Doctor, for saving our queen. When we win this war, we will do it in your name," Jul-Zun said.

The Doctor sighed. "I know the effects of the war on the Rutans, Jul-Zun," he said. "Your race is known for being adaptable. In the future, they will do everything for this war. In the same way the Sontarans began cloning themselves to leave their warriors unattached, the Rutans become the consistency of ghosts, and they lose all sense of individuality, even their names. They will come to call themselves the Rutan Host, looked down upon by all races with any sense of wonder."

If the Rutans had had faces, Jul-Zun and Raktar would have looked shocked.

"You've been at war for ten years now? Wait a few more centuries, and the Rutans will live up to their nature as the most adaptable creatures in the universe, adapting to the constant threat of annihilation," he said. This was technically against the laws of time, but he couldn't stand the happiness of a race doomed to become mindless ghosts.

Jul-Zun and Raktar looked at each other. "I assume we aren't supposed to know of this?" Raktar asked. The Doctor shook his head.

"We will tell no one. Instead, we will gather our friends together and escape this war. We will start a new Rutan race, a race that values individuality and follows the example of the Doctor of the Time Lords," Jul-Zun said.

The Doctor stood there for a second, then he laughed and gave his blobby friends a hug.

"Thank you, my friends. I'll look you up when I land," he said. "Maybe I'll be able to visit you again."

They returned to their vehicle, and the Doctor returned to his. He braced himself for the return trip, wondering how the Rutan queen's timeline could ever become intertwined with a Weeping Angel. For that to happen, an immense amount of power would be needed, more than even the TARDIS had.

His hand touched the dematerialization lever, but before he could pull it the TARDIS jerked, knocking him down. He pulled himself back up and opened the monitor.

The face of the Weeping Angel snarled at him from the screen, its hands glowing and placed on the TARDIS. It was sucking the chronon energy out of his ship, filling up. He must not have sent it far enough into the Vortex, its own reserves of chronon energy having seemingly returned it to the planet.

The Doctor knew it was dangerous, but he yanked the lever. Half the console exploded in the Doctor's face, throwing him against the wall, and every single warning light on the remains of the console lit up. The lights turned red, and an alarm that the Doctor had never heard before began to blare.

He pulled himself up on the edge of the console. His head and left arm were bleeding, and his right arm was likely broken. Not enough damage to cause him to regenerate, but still more than anything he could remember.

The monitor showed the Angel spiraling off into blackness, then it shattered into pieces, and the pieces crumbled to nothing. Then it fizzled out and sparked furiously, and the wall opposite the Doctor imploded, sucking him out into the Vortex, right behind the Weeping Angel.

He woke up to complete blackness everywhere. His arm seemed to be healed and his blood was gone. He stood up slowly, his feet echoing in the apparently infinite blackness.

He felt someone's eyes on his back, and he turned to see a woman standing still, watching him. He vaguely remembered her from the business on the STRY-TLR base at the end of the universe. It was M.

This time, she wore black suit pants and a light gray tank top, with a black suit jacket unbuttoned. Her long, straight, black hair was tied in a braid that hung over her right shoulder. She had her red converse sneakers on, as well as her Vortex Manipulator and a stern look.

"I saved your life yet again, Doctor. At this point, I'd say you owe me all 12 of your regenerations," she said. She walked over to him, then reached into her inside pocket and pulled out another Manipulator and put it on his wrist.

"Your TARDIS will be back where you need it, when you need it. I'm sorry I couldn't get to you sooner, but the residual energy that the Angel carried from the paradox kept me from getting to you until your TARDIS imploded. I managed to grab you from the Vortex and bring you here to this temporal pocket so we could talk."

The Doctor blinked, taking it all in. M had saved him from his TARDIS dying. How did she know? And of course the big question: who was she?

"Activate the Manipulator when you're ready. It will bring to to the big battle, where in the end, all of you will be needed to save the universe again. Even that one with the beard." she explained. "I'll see you again."

She stepped back and pressed her Manipulator, and was gone, leaving the Doctor alone in nothingness.


End file.
